BEHIND THE MASK.

The more observant members of the branch will have noticed a strange fungal growth on my chin of late. There is good reason behind this. Once I'd gained Advanced Diver (2nd Class in my case) I needed a target to aim for to keep me interested. A number of options were available: an instructional qualification, First Class Diver or disappearing into obscurity (obesity?). For me, the next step was to get something on paper to gauge my instructional capabilities. This came in the form of the Club Instructor exam having attended an ITC some months earlier. I'd been instructing diving almost since my trainee days due to the distinct lack of experienced divers that polytechnic diving clubs seem to suffer from as a result of high turnover. The Club Instructor exam was the first Nationally examined assessment I had been on and it was a real eye opener to see the professional manner in which these events are run and to a greater degree, a relief to find that the skills I’d picked up and were handing on were not totally wrong! The exam consists of a day's assessment demonstrating skills at lecturing and pool instruction followed by a theory examination at Advanced Diver standard. They said the results would take a couple of weeks and sure enough, three weeks later the result arrived. Good news! ... A Pass.

Back at the Club, I continued instructing but now with added confidence and about a year later, with branch elections at hand, I was coerced into putting myself forward as D.O. I was still a member of the Poly club at the time having held the position of D.O. for the past year or so and was left with the somewhat demanding position of being D.O. for two clubs! Something had to give and after four months the Poly elected a new D.O. I now needed another goal to aim for and one thing you do gain as D.O. is experience which stands you in good stead. I decided on First Class Diver.

The first thing to do is to find out the scope of the award as there seems to be some mystique about it. Talking to other First Class Divers was the key and Kevin Gillespie, then from Sussex Divers, was consulted. He explained what the exam consisted of and gave plenty of encouragement and offers of help. I obtained the necessary entry form and got my logbook up to date. Fortunately, I'd logged more than the required hundred dives since Second class.

A letter of recommendation from the Branch committee was a requirement at the time and with the necessary bribes that was obtained. The entry was made and dropped into BS-AC headquarters.

Contact with the regional coach revealed that a theory workshop was being run in Woolwich on Thursday evenings and a few phone calls and a cheque got me enrolled. The course lasted eight weeks culminating in the First Class Diver theory exam (another £10 !). This consists of a three hour written paper consisting of five questions. The first is twenty questions to check out the diversity of your knowledge. These are all worth one mark and as an example, one of the questions was "What is Utsire ?". It's lucky I'd read the section on weather forecasting on the way up on the train! There were also questions about compressor oil, air requirements, Light characteristics of Buoys, peripheral resistance, knots, the Beaufort wind scale, Charles' law, regulators, and Decca to mention but a few. The remaining four were full questions on Depth gauges and compressors, the human respiratory system, decompression theory and chartwork. The paper generally follows this format although the subject matter varies. The statutory three weeks of nail biting elapsed and the letter dropped on the mat. A pass! even though I’d cocked the last question up a bit. That was a relief and a much needed boost, so I sat the Advanced Instructor theory and got a good pass in that too! I'd applied to go to Dartmouth for the practical but that venue was, as always, over subscribed and so I opted for Anglesey. The practical took place toward the end of August and I pent the fortnight before preparing for the inflatable based task. The requirement was to produce an outline survey of a wreck, the position of which was to be supplied on the day. A car load of kit accompanied me to Holy Island. So did the wind.....Force 7-8 N.W.!! We went out for a look but performed the survey on a somewhat more sheltered site just off shore. The Sunday was intended to be a day's hard boat diving but the wind was now force 8 N.W....straight into Holyhead harbour. We opted for inflatables in the Menai Strait and although the day went well, it seemed somewhat tame. Throughout the day, questions were fired at me as my general knowledge was probed. The statutory wait, and a blow.....failure. Not surprising really. Two out of the ten candidates passed!

The theory pass is valid for three years but there is only one exam per year. So I re-applied for 1989 at Anglesey and a redoubled effort to get it behind me! The inflatable boat based task that year was a 25m x 1m grid survey for Asterias Rubens - Common Starfish. The wind once again followed me up and so we opted for Holyhead harbour. Viz less than 1m to start with until you touched the bottom... thence black as your hat. I aborted the task and went into the inevitable shallow water to at least demonstrate the principle. With a good day's hardboat activities the following day in Holyhead Harbour, I trotted off home feeling quietly confident. This time the result came through in a week and a half but the news was not good. The required passmark is 24 and I'd scored 22.

And so it came to pass that I once again made the pilgrimage to Holyhead this year. I took the precaution of growing a beard first as it had not escaped my notice that a large proportion if not all First Class divers have beards! Saturday's inflatable boat based task involved the measurement of underwater visibility. I could have predicted the outcome but went through the motions, this time in Trearddur Bay. (Pronounced tray-arthur). The wind had abated to force six with the direction N.W. and not due to back Westerly until after lunch, so we set off. It was draughty and massive overfalls could be seen toward South Stack. Fortunately we had an echo-sounder on board and in the reserve site, well inshore we found 21m. The task went well, the findings of the examiner and myself being confirmed by the second pair (use all your resources!). The rest of the day was spent on the tasks of two other candidates. Back to base and after a debrief, planning of the next day's diving. We were given a number of sites to dive and others to fix the positions of. Each of the six candidates had to perform the tasks of Dive marshal, diver, navigator, cox, inflatable cox and inflatable crew. There were only three examiners so it was quite a problem arranging that but with a bit of forethought and knowledge of the likelyhood that the examiners would change the order of events on the day just to determine how flexible we were, we sussed out a flexible plan!

The day dawned and we set off. The promised force 6 failed to materialise but the swell was something else. All the required tasks were performed including a dive with an examiner to 24m. The lights went out at 8m and the visibility was still less than a metre! We grovelled round the wreck of the S.S. ORIA for 25 minutes. I managed to navigate back to the shot! Once again questions were fired about oxygen administration to D.C.S. Casualties, recognition of diving disorders, arrangements for helicopter pickup, weather, knots, buoyage and lights, sextant principles, Decca navigator and possible errors. We eventually pottered back into Holyhead harbour ten mins after our predicted E.T.A. - not too bad! The weekend was the usual constant pressure and hard work with reports having to be written after each day’s diving but it was worth it and thoroughly enjoyable even though I gave all my breakfast to the fish on the Sunday! ... Just keep going!

The debrief for all candidates attracted the usual barrage of criticism, some of which was constructive, and we all left for home - results promised within 2 weeks. Well, the rest is history...third time lucky... or was it the beard? We’ll never know! If anyone thinks they might like to have a go, it’s not as bad as the picture I've painted. I'd be more than willing to help out and at least point you in the right direction. Many people have helped me over the past three years both within and outside the branch. I thank you all.

Graham Adcock.